Bad Habit
by xhotel.california
Summary: They could never be mistaken for lovers. But something may be changing between them. Mayuri/OFC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Alright, so I'm back to writing on here after like...over a year, I think. Freaking crazy, right?

Welp, this is my first Bleach fic. It's just a little thing I wrote to get the juices flowing again. May or may not be expanded upon later, depending on the reception this gets.

Reviews are always appreciated.

Pairing: Kurotsuchi/Unnamed OC

Rating: M

Warnings: Language, inexplicit lemon

**Disclaimer:** No, I don't own Bleach or any of it's characters. If I did... well. -insert maniacal laughter here; All that belongs to me is the Jane Doe of an OC I throw in there.

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_"I gave you just enough to paralyze, thought maybe you could satisfy. Sometimes I get so bored of you..."  
__Nothing to do with Love ~ Halestorm_

**Bad Habit**

This isn't the first time this has happened, and it's almost certainly not going to be the last. It's violent to the point of brutality, so rough it can only be described as animalistic. He never takes her from the front, only from behind, and she never acknowledges just who is pounding into her so hard that it's a wonder her knees haven't gone through the floorboards by now.

It's never his chambers they use, and they never make it to the futon rolled out in the corner. There has never been even one kiss shared between them, and there's never likely to be.

The closest they ever get to one another is when he's just about at his peak, when one pasty-white hand is planted on the floor or desk beside hers and the other arm wraps almost possessively around her waist as he hovers over her. But his chest never touches her back, and she never tries to arch into him.

Their sounds aren't soft gasps and gentle whispers of each other's names but growls and grunts and the occasional manic chuckle. They leave marks, but not love-bites that they revel in later. They're deep scratches and bites that leave them both bloody messes by the time they've finished with one another.

Nothing about them is sweet or romantic, and they both prefer it that way. This can barely be called sex, and it certainly isn't lovemaking. It's fucking, pure and primal and simple.

Usually, he comes to her straight from the lab or she to him after a distinctly infuriating mission. It starts with a shove to the wall, or just that look in her eye and he knows. He's never sure _what_ he knows, but that look tells him something. Anyone else would say it tells him she needs him, but they both know she doesn't.

Neither of them needs the other.

And it wouldn't matter if they did.

Usually, he'll snake an arm around her throat in a snug chokehold and start from there. He's never done _this_ before.

He's never marched into her quarters without either his haori or body paint adorning his figure. He's never let her see that much of him. And he's never started with that arm around her waist and hips flush against hers.

He hadn't thrown her to the floor seconds after their mutual but silent agreement of how to spend at least part of the night. Instead, he'd jammed his free hand down the front of her hakama, and to hell with what she had to say about it.

If she ever spoke, that is.

It's one of the things that he actually likes about her. She's silent and hides as much behind a cloth mask that covers one eye, her nose, and mouth as he does behind his paint. He sees almost an equal in her – although she's not as scientifically brilliant as he is.

It's that slight hint of sentimentality that irks him so badly tonight. That has driven him to this, to her quarters at easily three in the morning after being awake for at the very least two days straight, to ignoring any motion that she gave that he needed to stop. Because, no, damn it all, he _doesn't_ care about her.

And no, asshole, the bite mark he leaves deep in her shoulder is _not_ a fucking sign of ownership.

Even if she's just gotten back from a long, obnoxious mission with a small research team. An all male research team. Because he's _not_ jealous, damn it, and he's not bloody _pissed._

And now her mask is down, ripped away by one of them, he doesn't remember which nor does he care to. He'll analyze all this later – or maybe he won't. God knows he won't like the answers he comes up with if he does. So, maybe he'll keep this one in the dark.

But for now he is perfectly okay with ramming into that tight heat and pushing her upper body down until her chest is flush with the floor. Then nearly folding her body in half from there.

He ignores the fact that, usually, she wouldn't have let him go this far. He's only ever allowed to get her on her hands and knees, or he's likely to actually get himself killed.

But tonight, she lets him. And as he nears finishing and that hand comes down beside hers, she _does_ arch her back and lets out perhaps the most delicious sound he's ever heard. He finds her smaller hand over his own and as he goes to pull it back, he instead finds his fingers curling through the spaces between hers and he curses himself for it.

And then she's squeezing around him in the way she knows he needs, and he's spilling inside her. Just to piss her off as much as she's been enraging him.

She doesn't resist him, though, much to his utter irritation. She doesn't even _react_. There's no extra little growl, no kick to the hip, no spinning and lunging at him, nothing. She just...takes it and slips out from under his body, swallowing back any sound that she might have made about him leaving her body and his seed slowly slipping out of her.

There are angry, red trails down her sides from where his nails had damn near broken the skin that match the swelling claw marks on his arms where she had dug her own nails in and clamped down. But it's as if she doesn't notice. Usually, she'd turn back to him with a grin then kick him out of her quarters for the night.

Tonight, however, she simply pulls her clothes back into place and waves a hand to him. She doesn't turn around at all. There's no grin, no rolled eyes, no foot to the stomach until he's gone. She just slides onto her bed, watching with cold green eyes from the shadow that hovers over her as he leaves the room.

He doesn't see her finger trace the already-bruised bite mark he's left in the crook of her neck, and she doesn't see his fist slam into the wall just outside her quarters.


	2. Chapter 2

_"You beg, you plead, you wanted more than you could keep" - Nothing to do with Love, Halestorm_

**Bad Company**

It's said Director and Assistant Director of the Institute of Research and Development have little in common, but it's a lie. The Captain of the Twelfth may be more outwardly eccentric than his Third Seat, but the younger man's mind is cut from the same bit of dark cloth stitched with insanity. The only difference between the two is their pension for subtlety.

It's what makes them such a perfect team, and it's what makes the rest of the division fear.

Akon may seem to be Kurotsuchi's stoic voice of reason, but in reality, he is just as twisted as his mentor. While the captain hides behind easily a gallon of specialised body paint, the Third Seat prowls and silently raves behind a never-changing straight face.

It's almost a requirement of the Twelfth to have some sort of mask, at least among those more in the public eye. It may not be as obvious as body paint, and it is rarely as subtle as a stoic demeanor, but it is always there.

Rin uses an obsession with sweets, some others hide their intellect rather than their insanity, and Fuyuko, one of the newest members of the Squad, uses a black, cloth mask that covers most of her face.

The masks are everywhere, and every member of the Twelfth can spot them easily. But very rarely are they ever seen through, and it's this fact that keeps the shroud of rumours around the higher-ranking members of the squad.

As Third Seat, Akon is a valued member of the division, kept because of usefulness on his part - and certainly _not_ fondness on the captain's part - but he is still not completely safe.

Thus, he knows how to walk Kurotsuchi's line without once faltering, and he knows how to subtly wedge an idea into the captain's mind.

It's this skill that he's utilizing now, as he leans against the doorframe into his captain's personal lab, characteristically bored expression painted across his face as smoothly as the older man's paint. His arms are crossed over his chest, legs at the ankles as he silently "listens" to his superior grumble and rant about the inopportune timing of Captain's meetings.

"I'll get Fuyuko to run the cultures in my lab," he shrugs as he speaks, his inward craving for a morning cigarette never making it outward.

But there's a hint of something else in the offer, a subtle push at an unspoken boundary. Because everyone _knows_ Fuyuko is the Captain's, whether or not either will admit it.

The ever-silent woman is off limits, lest one end up another of Kurotsuchi's walking bombs or worse.

The glare that responds to the statement tells the horned Soul Reaper that the painted one caught the implied test and that the Captain doesn't know quite how to respond.

He's trapped in a corner now by the anger and possessiveness burning in his chest and his utter need for detachment. If he snaps that the other most certainly will _not_ have the mentioned female "running tests" in his "lab", he will have officially laid claim to her. He will have admitted that it is not as meaningless as he claims.

But if he simply lets it go, Akon _will_ do exactly as his message states - both the obvious and implied. And that twists the captains gut in a deranged sort of rage that leaves him wanting to dissect the younger male while he yet breathes.

And the worst of it is that Akon _knows_ the corner he's backed his superior into. This was the plan of the statement.

Because the cold, green graze of the woman in question may not have seen the fist Kurotsuchi put through a wall in the barracks as he left her quarters the night before, but Akon's dark hues had. And the Third Seat has decided it's time for those two to face up to the reality of their situation.

None of the three are sentimental beings, nor do any of them care for the feelings of others or their doings as they do not pertain to them personally. But there's a certain kinship between Captain, Third Seat, and Fifth Seat. A bond of the same kind of insanity that leaves them barely this side of evil holds them together in a way no one aside from them could ever truly understand. It's almost a fondness for one another, but not quite. It's deeper, and so very much darker. It runs like a twisting vein of black metal under an impenetrable surface of ice that covers each of them.

But something now tugs the strings that hold the three together, and Akon is nothing if not a self preservationist. He knows how to play Fuyuko and Kurotsuchi's games masterfully, Kurotsuchi because he is his direct superior and no one knows the consequences od defying him like Akon, and Fuyuko because she's too violently unstable _not_ to play along with her. But those tripwires that Akon finds such great joy in traipsing along are beginning to snap one by one as the tension between Fuyuko, the Captain, and their mutual refusal to pick all or nothing, mounts higher and higher.

And Akon knows he will be caught in the middle when there are no more threads left and the notes he has often danced to go sour. It will become a spider web the likes of which even Akon will not be able to navigate, and he has no intention of allowing it to go that far because he has no intention of trying to relearn either of their buttons.

It's a dangerous game that Akon has been playing for the past century with Kurotsuchi, but the arrival of this new woman - a transfer from some other regional Thirteen Squad that couldn't handle her level of insanity and raw skill together - has changed the rules, changed the game board itself. It's no longer complicated chess with seven layers and possibly deadly consequences for the wrong move.

As dark eyes run over the Captain's form, Akon can nearly _see_ the black cloud that's fallen over him, and Akon is nothing but a self-preservationist. He will retreat for now, rescind the offer with a simple, too-casual shrug, and turn his back with a dismissive wave of his hand. It won't be the end of it, and Kurotsuchi knows this. The point has been made, the sparks have dropped to ignite some kind of low-burning embers somewhere inside the painted Captain's gut.

The only sound made between Akon's leaving and the Captain's departure is a beaker of acid shattering against the wall where the younger man had been leaning.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Well, this is a long one. About twice the other two, give or take.

Just to put it out there, this may not be regularly updated. It's just a little thing I'm screwing around with when I feel like it.

That being said... Reviews keep it going ;D

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_"Even angels hide their wicked schemes, but you take that to new extremes..."  
Love the Way You Lie, Part II ~ Rihanna ft. Eminem_

**Bad Timing**

It's obvious to everyone who has the misfortune to be in the painted Captain's way as he storms toward the First Division headquarters for that damnable Captain's meeting that Kurotsuchi is on a particularly brutal tear today. There isn't a single Soul Reaper stupid enough to stay in his line of sight for more than a few seconds lest they turn into some experiment or another that was never actually meant to be fruitful.

There are a good thousand different places he would rather be than standing in line with the other Captain's and listen to the old man drone on and on about useless things.

The Seireitei has been quiet for quite a while now, dreadfully so if one were to ask a few of the Captains and perhaps a Lieutenant or two. There's very little for anyone to do other than routine training sessions and repairs to the Seireitei and the closest districts of the Rukongai.

This has made for awfully dull Captain's Meetings. No one is quite sure of the Head Captain's motives in calling them when the most pressing matter is that Zaraki has yet again had one of his subordinates forge the large Captain's signature. Not that anyone is even remotely surprised by this development, but they all roll their eyes and subtly glare at the man as if this is the only reason they have been dragged away from they're duties. Except, of course, a certain painted Captain, who stares daggers into the other man with shameless and utter distain.

Kurotsuchi mentally plans the live dissection of his most hated person in the room and doesn't even bother to hide the dark fantasy from his features - a scowl that probably would kill a lesser man, twitching fingers, and an impatiently tapping heel.

"If you're going to slack off and cover it up, at least put half an effort into it," the blue-haired male all put growls, his mood far worse for the day's previous events.

If he hadn't been called here, he'd be two-thirds finished with yet another new toxin by now. Or maybe he'd be gathering new test subjects, despite the fact that his numbers of squad members "killed in action" this month is already pushing his allowance.

This, inevitably, starts another bickering match between the two Captains which the Head Captain has to personally end.

Yes, there are a thousand other places that Mayuri Kurotsuchi would rather be than _here. _A thousand other tasks he could be doing, poisons he could be making, subjects he could be dissecting. And yet only a single female he'd rather be at his side than all twelve of the other Captains, his traitorous mind reminds him, thinking far beyond the situation as it usually does.

He tries to shove down the thought, or better yet deny it, but he finds he cannot.

Science requires one to be capable of setting aside one's personal bias for an accurate conclusion. If one expects a certain outcome, it is inevitable that this expectation will cause even subconscious alterations to an experiment.

Compartmentalization is one of the blue-haired Captain's most finely0tuned skills. There is no one that can put aside personal objectives like he can.

He has never cursed the talent so sincerely in his life as he has in this moment as he realizes that it has made it impossible for him to lie to himself. About anything, it seems.

Yet another petty complaint drops from the Head Captain's lips, and it's only this one that can drag Kurotsuchi from his self-chastising. It's something about the Twelfth, a repair not being to the old man's liking - probably a mismatches shade of paint for a building or something equally trivial.. It sounds like a perfect excuse to take out his stress on a few squad members, but Kurotsuchi is far too high-strung to let it slide.

The grin that crosses his face looks more like a sneer.

"If you don't like the way it's done, do it yourself. My squad has more important things to be doing," he snaps, lip curling in distaste. "Make the Fourth fix it."

He feels the not-glare that Unohana sends his way, but he doesn't so much as flinch. There's nothing that woman can do to him that he doesn't do to himself for the fuck of it.

"And what's so important?" Zaraki blurts as if unable to resist bickering with the smaller man.

Said smaller Captain returns with a surprisingly long list of tasks, anywhere from gigai repairs to minor technological improvements that the Head Captain has been trying to rush him into finishing. The other tries to retort about efficiency, but Kurotsuchi cuts him off with a laugh and a too-bitter "then you and your barbarian squad can do it".

The meeting concludes soon after with another warning to Zaraki that will again go unheeded and muttered "get to it when you can" directed toward Kurotsuchi, and the others file out, a few chattering amongst themselves as they do.

It's not like they have any pressing orders to get to, after all.

The painted Captain can't get out of the room fast enough, but drawing any more attention to his current stress level might very well lead to someone deeming it necessary to intervene. And if he has to stand there and listen to someone faking concern, he might just snap. Well, more than he already has, that is.

He certainly _does not_ tense when a hand finds his shoulder to stop him just outside the room and tugs him off to the side. His jaw does _not_ clench, nor does his fist. He is the _epitome_ of calm.

At least, that's what he tells himself.

The voice that reaches his ears is one that he doesn't necessarily _hate_, but it's certainly one he has always been suspicious of. How anyone can be that _nice_ and actually mean it is beyond the blue-haired man as he jerks around to meet an alarmingly gentle and knowing gaze.

Beside his confronter is the other Captain's right arm - or he might as well be for how attached the two are.

Kurotsuchi makes a mental note to ask his Third what footage the younger man as on the inseparable pair that is the Captains of the Eighth and Thirteenth.

It's the brunette that the scientist has the most problem with - the lazy waste of space. But he'll keep the internal ranting to himself at the moment, lest he spill something about his true stressor.

He doesn't hear what Ukitake says, the clawing in his overactive minds is drowning just about everything out at the moment. If Kurotsuchi wasn't Kurotsuchi, he might have put money on him having a panic attack at any moment. But the painted Captain doesn't have anxiety attacks, he's just overly annoyed with everything in his path the moment.

"...ee. I mean, you've always been high-strung, but you seem a little more off-kilter than usual," Kurotsuchi catches the end of the brunette's remark, and it's not nearly mocking enough to make the painted man comfortable in this conversation.

The Captain of the Twelfth has always made a point to keep his distance from the other captains - all twelve of them. After being sent to the Maggot's Nest for being insane, then being exploited for that insane brilliance, watching the one Captain he'd _almost_ trusted - despite hating his guts - betray everything they worked for and give the Twelfth a stigma they'd barely recovered from over a century later, and finally learning that he'd been outwitted by the man he'd kept his eye on the closest, Kurotsuchi has learned that not a single one of them is all that different from himself. Thus, they cannot be trusted to have anyone else's interests in mind.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi has always been fairly self-aware. He knows his mind works differently, knows he feels differently. He _knows_ he's not at all a good person, he just doesn't _care_. And in his experience, none of these other Captains are any different.

Which makes it incredibly awkward for the youngest man in this small group of three as he stares down two seemingly genuine looks of concern.

"Tch," he finally spits, turning around with every intention of ignoring them otherwise. But to his complete displeasure and utter annoyance, they follow him.

In all rationality, they are all three headed the same way, but it's obvious they are following him. They're walking too closely behind him to be doing anything but.

It just makes the youngest man's teeth grind against each other. He's knows what they're doing.

Kurotsuchi is not a man that can keep quiet. He mutters to himself constantly in the lab, despite his irritation when _others_ speak to him while he's working. There's something about him that won't let him simply _shut up_. If he has any faults, it is this. He often gives nothing away, but he's aware that's likely only because no one can understand the terms he uses.

But with this situation... They are terms that anyone would understand, and like hell he's opening with "so there's this girl".

Because it's not _her_ that's the issue. It's the stirring in a place in his chest he didn't even know he possessed and the churning of his gut that says he knows _exactly_ what each little pang is.

The problem is that he's emoting and he doesn't know how to deal with it - not that he will ever admit to such a thing.

But it's not emotion in a way anyone else could understand.

He doesn't want to buy the woman flowers and spoiler her rotten.

He just wants to fuck her into a mattress rather than the side of a lab table or the floor.

He doesn't want to marry her and start a damn family.

He wants to dominate her, claim her.

He wants to cut her open and brand her.

He wants to _own_ her.

And there's no way someone like Ukitake or Kyoraku would understand such a thing. They emote like normal people. They love, they don't possess. Trying to explain it would be pointless.

"It's nothing the likes of you could understand," he snaps over his shoulder, hands shoving deep into his pockets as he stalks back to his lab.

They're stronger than him, he knows, so there'd be no point in trying to run from them only for them all to end up at his Division, where the answer to their question would be obvious, but too complicated for those two to possibly grasp. They'd give him hell about "having feelings" and tell him something like "it's only natural to care for someone".

And they'd have no idea what they'd be talking about. Because Kurotsuchi _doesn't _care beyond that he wants to be the one that ends her.

He will be the one to claim her, and the one to destroy her.

There's a chuckle behind him that makes the painted man's skin crawl.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say he's got a girl problem!" The brunette laughs again in his irritatingly jovial way, but it's cut off with an "oof" and a thud as he's elbowed in the ribs by his friend.

"Tch. As if I'm burdened by such trivial things," he's convincingly annoyed, but he's not sure if the others think it's due to the implication that Kurotsuchi has emotions or the fact that's he's - somewhat - correct. He decides not to press his luck and grit out that the others would be wiser to simply leave him alone.

He barely avoids being thrown as a solid weight slams into abdomen. There's a growl that he instantly recognizes - one that rarely is in this part of the Seireitei for obvious reasons. He doesn't need the louder roar to know what's happened. He just doesn't understand how.

Neither of them is mindful of the fact that he has his arm around the masked woman's waist, holding her off her feet and in place against his chest. They're both staring down the escaped test subject with an intensity that already has it backing away.

The other two behind the painted man notice, however. They notice that their younger isn't flinching at the contact or shoving the woman away. And they notice that they seem to be silently communicating with one another as she shoves off the scientist with both feet and he shoves her forward, propelling her into the modified Hollow.

One goes to grab one of his swords, but the painted Captain simply crosses his arms over his chest.

"It's her mess, she'll clean it up," he sneers at the others as if that should be obvious.

But they are aware how closely he's watching the fight between his Fifth seat and the Hollow.

What they _don't_ know, is that the Captain isn't worried for her life, but for a secret he, his Lieutenant, his Third, and the masked woman have been keeping since she arrived. One that will get her killed should she reveal it - and more importantly, Kurotsuchi will catch hell for it, special privileges from the Central 46 or not.

And there is no way in hell he is going back to the Nest at all, let alone for something so stupid.

She has the Hollow disabled quicker than the two older Captains had anticipated, but the younger isn't surprised at all. Instead, he has he by the hair in a heartbeat, yanking her head roughly back to glare at her.

"And just how the _hell_ did that happen?" He asks in a sing-song voice that has at least one of the other Captains flinching back. There's something deranged in that wide, all-tooth smile and those feral, golden eyes.

She shrugs a little too nonchalantly for the scene to make any sense, then lifts her hands. At first, Kyoraku thinks she's trying to struggle, but she ends up making odd hand motions too quickly for either the brunette or the sickly Captain to catch.

"What _idiot_ decided _that_ was a good idea?!" The painted man all but roars in her face. It's a rhetorical question, but she signs to him again anyway. "You'd better fucking figure it out," he snaps.

He doesn't quiet register what he's doing or that the other two are still watching as he leans his face a little too close to hers and speaks again in a soft, but definitely menacing half-growl, half-whisper.

"It'd really be a shame to count you among the _unfortunate accidents_."

Her only response is bringing one hand up to his throat with a look that clearly says "if you think you can".

There's a long silence afterward, the two giving each other the most challenging looks to have ever been given, faces far too close to each other's.

Only Kyoraku's unintelligible exclamation - which is cut off by his best friend dragging him away via flashstep - knocks the two out of their staring contest.


End file.
